Is the HPF "standard" cast exhaust manifold really made in China?

I made a post on E46Fanatics guessing that Horsepowerfreak's cast exhaust manifolds were made in China, and within the 24 hours the post was deleted and I got a ban. Are HPF's exhaust manifolds really cast in China?

Well trolling vendors or trying to put them down isn't appreciated but asking legitimate questions certainly is allowed.

This may surprise you, but a whole lot of tuners have their parts fabricated in China or Taiwan. A lot of it comes from overseas due to cost.

HPF allows you several choices for manifolds. HPF's own manifold is made likely to keep costs down. If you want a different manifold, you can get a different manifold they don't force anything on you.

Additionally, just because something is made in china doesn't mean it's terrible so there doesn't need to be a negative association. It ultimately always comes down to design, material quality, and cost for just about anything.

I'm not completely innocent, because I was poking fun at HPF on the Doc Race headers for doing a photo shoot but not taking the effort to wipe off the stamps on the new headers that said CHINA and SCHEDULE 10 304L PIPE, hence how the topic of Chinese made manifolds came up.

Because Chinese culture emphasizes product disposability, which results in low price, low quality, and low worker pride in manufacturing unless under American or European quality control. Overall it makes for large gamble with anything from that country.

Well trolling vendors or trying to put them down isn't appreciated but asking legitimate questions certainly is allowed.

This may surprise you, but a whole lot of tuners have their parts fabricated in China or Taiwan. A lot of it comes from overseas due to cost.

HPF allows you several choices for manifolds. HPF's own manifold is made likely to keep costs down. If you want a different manifold, you can get a different manifold they don't force anything on you.

Additionally, just because something is made in china doesn't mean it's terrible so there doesn't need to be a negative association. It ultimately always comes down to design, material quality, and cost for just about anything.

Sticky, you made a couple great posts. I could not have said it better. I think the products and QC from Taiwan are on par with high world standards. Mainland China is not the same. Yes, we DO have some amazingly fantastic, cheap products coming from Red China. But you can have two identical items on a shelf in the USA that were made from the same factory in China, same batch. One can be incredible and the other, a busted up piece of junk.

Too many of the products that come from China are not put through ANY semblance of QC. We have to depend on the importer/seller to inspect each and every item. That is a tall order.

The confidence level just is not there for a LOT of buyers. Sometimes the importer WILL take care of QC( I am sure HPF does not ship or install any defective Chinese units). But all to often There are so many that do not do any additional QC. As a result there is still a stigma on many Chinese goods.`The stigma of being INCONSISTENT, not inferior. It can be a real crap shoot some times buying items from Red China.

It needs to be brought to light that Taiwan does not equal mainland China when it comes to quality of fabrication.

Some of the stuff from Taiwan could put domestic stuff to shame and the pricing from Taiwan is a LOT higher than mainland china aswell. There are a lot of companies which we common folks believe are north american or euro, but they outsource to Taiwan all the time.

There are factories in Taiwan to whom you could send a jig or sample and they could fire off production within 99.9% accuracy with top notch quality for you, so it's not a bad idea to design a product inhouse and then outsource mass production over to Taiwan.

From Steed Speed manifolds to made in China cast manifolds? Talk about going cheap.
China does make some good stuff though, but most we get is the crappy ones. You got to see how they make things. R&D to final product takes less than a sec. Amazing stuff.

I'm not completely innocent, because I was poking fun at HPF on the Doc Race headers for doing a photo shoot but not taking the effort to wipe off the stamps on the new headers that said CHINA and SCHEDULE 10 304L PIPE, hence how the topic of Chinese made manifolds came up.

Because Chinese culture emphasizes product disposability, which results in low price, low quality, and low worker pride in manufacturing unless under American or European quality control. Overall it makes for large gamble with anything from that country.

I think it is American culture that emphasizes product disposability China just feeds it.

A lot of American factories are in China with their own quality control measures so just being located in China doesn't mean a product is bad at all. I think you are working under a false predisposition. It's like saying the cars VW makes in Mexico are junk because it's Mexico.

I think it is American culture that emphasizes product disposability China just feeds it.

A lot of American factories are in China with their own quality control measures so just being located in China doesn't mean a product is bad at all. I think you are working under a false predisposition. It's like saying the cars VW makes in Mexico are junk because it's Mexico.

Oh no, it's not even close. If you think Americans like disposability, you haven't visited Taiwan or China. They take it to an extreme over there, and the mindset is way different. I'm speaking from personal and work experiences while I was over there.

Oh no, it's not even close. If you think Americans like disposability, you haven't visited Taiwan or China. They take it to an extreme over there, and the mindset is way different. I'm speaking from personal and work experiences while I was over there.

We're talking about the same thing when it comes to quality control.

Ok well I mean if they treat things as disposable so be it the point stands that you can create quality products in China, Taiwan, or wherever. Negatively associating things as cheap or inferior somehow because they are made in China, like the computer you are probably using or your cell phone, it a bit ignorant.

Ok well I mean if they treat things as disposable so be it the point stands that you can create quality products in China, Taiwan, or wherever. Negatively associating things as cheap or inferior somehow because they are made in China, like the computer you are probably using or your cell phone, it a bit ignorant.

True, it's not a guarantee that the product is bad based on its country of origin.

Still, something about a $975 cast iron manifold that is made in China seems really wrong when a German made, Genuine BMW cast iron manifold(Part no. 11622248166) is only $313. I doubt I'm alone since everyone on this forum already has a bit of a bias towards products from certain countries and why the forum is called GermanBoost.com and not ChinaBoost.com

Still, something about a $975 cast iron manifold that is made in China seems really wrong when a German made, Genuine BMW cast iron manifold(Part no. 11622248166) is only $313. I doubt I'm alone since everyone on this forum already has a bit of a bias towards products from certain countries and why the forum is called GermanBoost.com and not ChinaBoost.com

It's probably called GermanBoost.com due to being about Germancars not because everyone here only wants products from Germany. These OEM's buy their parts from all over BTW, including China.

Regarding the manifold, HPF let's you choose what manifold you want to use. No gun to anyone's head.

If stuff made in China proves one thing...its you get what pay for. You pay less, you get less. Here's where the misconception, IMO, comes in.

Why do you go overseas to purchase a part? Because its cheaper! Why would you go to china and get a high quality part when you can get it here in the US for less when you factor in shipping, lead times, and all of the other costs. Can you get a cheap part here in the US? Probably not because of labor costs. Or that cheap part will be of lower quality than China's cheap part.

Again, you get what you pay for!

HPF (if true) is not the only one. Take my active autowerke catch can as an example. It has an AA logo on it and cost $100. Looks like the blue catch can on ebay that goes for $40 that is made in china. I would hazard a guess that ALL BMW FI companies source some components (some critical) from China.

I'm kind of sick of Fanatics. Most of the smarter guys are gone...I guess to here. In the FI section its just vendors posting their crap and fanboys weighing drooling all over it. Then other discussions are about Raceland coil overs, stretch, poke, and (what I hate the most) carbon fiber being slathered all over their car like butter on toast.